


when i'm older (i'll be silent beside you)

by quietroom



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, M/M, Uni AU, i dont fuckin know man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 10:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9320225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietroom/pseuds/quietroom
Summary: “You’re talking like that was decades ago.” Dan says, distractedly folding the corner of a page.“It feels like that though.” Kyle mumbles. “Doesn’t it?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was a fic i wanted to finish before 2016 ended, but that obviously didn't happen! i still wanted to get it out though, so here it is. fucking take it from my hands i am SO TIRED OF IT
> 
> anyway, a few liberties were taken with this, possibly most noticeably with the fact that i didn’t make dan bald, hopefully that’s okay though. never been to uni in england or uni in general so i don’t know what the hell i’m talking about like always but i DID try. like a real attempt was made here. even though it didn't really turn out very good. also english still isn’t my first language. sorry for any mistakes 
> 
> title from shelter by porter robinson + madeon, which has nothing to really do with this story but it’s a pretty good song, so, you know

_1._

  
Dan’s flat stinks of instant coffee and lightly of spilled alcohol, even when both of those are missing from the shelves. The smell is odd, but easy enough to get used to, and it’s not like Kyle can even judge. He starts assimilating it with the idea of staying up till the late hours, bullshitting coursework under a warm yellow light with Dan reading something under his breath on his bed.

It reminds him a little of _before_. Of the times when they’d climb up to Dan’s bedroom back at his house and bounce revision questions off of each other until Kyle had to go home.

“You’re talking like that was decades ago.” Dan says, distractedly folding the corner of a page.

“It feels like that though.” Kyle mumbles. “Doesn’t it?”

Silence fills the air for a moment. Dan hums, lightly, and then turns back to his book.

* * *

 Kyle’s been setting up the equipment for Dan and his new friend Sophie’s odd little campus radio show so often it’s become more of a chore than a bunch of little favours. Dan’s shoes squeak when he bounces his leg, watching Kyle fiddle with some wires and plugs under the table.

“You should really learn how to do this, you know,” Kyle says, when he pulls his head back up. “It’s honestly not hard.”

“Why should I? I have you,” Dan murmurs, turning his attention to his computer screen.

“One day I won’t be around to set up your stuff, then what?”

“I hardly doubt that’ll ever happen.” He says, nonchalantly, and Kyle doesn’t even make the effort to argue back because he knows he’s right.

* * *

 The new friends Dan had made in the year Kyle was absent drag him to parties and all sorts of other fun things when they occur, and Dan brings Kyle along because, well, that’s just what he does.

There’s free drinks and loud music and too many people crammed in one place, and it doesn’t at all seem like the sort of thing Dan would _ever_ enjoy, but yet he grins from ear to ear the whole time and even awfully dances along whenever he gets the chance to. Kyle assumes it’s the alcohol. Dan’s flatmate says it’s the alcohol.

“Well, it mostly helps him loosen up, you know?” Ralph’s nursing a glass filled with an unknown dark liquid, trying not to spill it whenever someone bumps into him. “He wouldn’t ever even leave the corner of the room if he didn’t have a little bit of vodka in his system.”

Kyle wants to say _I know_ , but instead he just nods. Dan’s on the other side of the room, laughing exaggeratedly at a joke a girl Kyle’s never seen before has just told, and he feels like his heart’s dropped to his stomach. He decides it’s probably easier to blame that on the few drinks he had.

* * *

  _2._

They order takeout one night and eat it while sitting on the living room floor because Dan’s flatmate is out for the day and he’s sort of their primary source of food on Friday nights by now– he’s better at making food than the both of them and always generous enough to cook enough for all.

They’re flicking through the channels on the TV and gossiping about people from their classes, which feels slightly nostalgic. The light blinks above them. Kyle says they’re using the wrong bulbs, but Dan shrugs and says that it’s fine as long as it works.

The remote’s battery dies and gets them stuck on a dumb reality show. They _could_ just change it on the TV, but that’d require getting up; and as soon as they both finished their meals, Dan dropped his head on Kyle’s lap and showed no signs of wanting to move. He falls asleep in the middle of an episode, coincidentally a few minutes after Kyle drops his hand to his head and starts absentmindedly running his fingers through his hair.

Maybe it’s a bit uncomfortable for him, but he tries committing this moment to memory. From Dan’s soft hair to his weight on his thigh, to the hum of the TV and the flickering light…

* * *

 There’s this shabby library that Dan seems to absolutely adore because he practically only goes there whenever he wants to pick up new things to read or stuff for his assignments. For Kyle, though, it’s really awfully lit and smells like the books are decomposing as they look at them; but whenever Dan invites him to tag along, he always agrees to go with.

Even though he always seems to have a fixed idea of what books he wants to leave with, Dan spends what seems like a century picking through the shelves, quietly stepping up and down the rows, getting lost in even the most boring genre subsections. Kyle distracts himself by looking through the piles of incredibly old superhero comic books that definitely have seen better days, and whenever Dan crosses him he rolls his eyes and calls Kyle a “child” with a smile on his face, to which Kyle always flips him off and calls him a “nerd” back, to which someone nearby shushes them for making too much noise.

“That’s it?” Kyle asks, when Dan finally steps out from the dusty shelves with two relatively thin books Kyle knows he’ll finish in the next few days, which’ll force them to come back probably before the end of the week.

“Yeah,” Dan hums, and his eyes are so bright, so… blue, that Kyle feels that even the dinginess of this place can’t dim them down. He takes a deep breath, and Dan motions to the door with his head, oblivious. “Ready to go?”

* * *

 Sleeping on the same bed as Dan has always been easy. He’s accustomed to curling up to occupy as little space as possible whenever he sleeps, which always leaves gaps on the mattress that are big enough for Kyle to comfortably fit in.

Despite the fact that it’s a whole different room, a whole different _city_ , actually; and the fact that they haven’t yet overgrown this bed, it all feels just so extremely familiar.

Dan’s already drifted off, having stayed up the night before trying to finish homework for one of his less important classes (which was something, let it be known, that Kyle _strongly argued against_ , but it’s not like it was easy to tell Dan to just chill out when it came to things like this). Kyle can’t get himself to sleep as easily.

They’re far apart enough not to be touching, but near enough for Kyle to be able to hear Dan’s breathing. He decides there’s something interesting about his face.

In the moonlight he can almost count all the tiny freckles scattered around his features. His hair’s getting longer, and Kyle moves some stray locks of it away. He holds his breath and lets his fingers brush on Dan’s cheek, against the so many dots painted on his skin...

Dan doesn’t even shift. Kyle slowly draws his hand back.

* * *

_3._

It’s a Sunday morning and Tom yawns in greeting when Kyle stumbles in through the door. He disguises his surprise about how they’re actually both there at the same time for once by just acknowledging his existence with a nod in his direction, then tries scuttling back to his room.

“Long night?” Kyle pauses. He actually hasn’t talked to him for so long he managed to forget what he _sounded like_.

They were supposed to be _flatmates_ , for fuck’s sake.

“Uh, yeah. I was over at my friend’s, um, studying.”

The awful quirk he has of stuttering probably makes that sound awfully insincere, because Tom snorts in response. “Yeah, okay.”

“It’s– It’s nothing like that!” Kyle rushes to correct himself. “Honestly, we just– it was my best friend, we just–”

Tom hums, raising his mug filled with coffee to his lips, interrupting him mid sentence. “Don’t you think now’s the time to take the next step in your relationship?” He says, _so fucking nonchalantly_ it makes Kyle do a double take.

“W… What?”

“I mean, it’s none of my business, but with you spending more time over there than here, wouldn’t it be more economic for the both of you if you just got a flat with him?”

“No, no,” Kyle steps nearer. “What do you mean, next step in our _‘relationship’?_ ”

“You fucking know, moving in together. What I just said.”

“I– Tom, we’re not–” his stutter kicks back in, and Tom raises an eyebrow at him. “What the _fuck_ , we’re not _dating_.”

“Oh,” he looks him up and down for a moment. “... are you sure?”

* * *

 It’s _weird_ , and Kyle doesn’t know why it took so long for him to notice but it is really fucking weird.

It’s how Dan just rests his head on Kyle’s shoulder or how he just _leans_ towards Kyle whenever they’re sat next to each other and he has no idea why nobody ever thought of letting both of them know this was odd, or that they should've stopped doing it a long time ago.

Kyle begins to get hyper aware of all the instances where Dan touches him, and begins slowly recoiling from it in the most discreet way he can, because this _is_ weird, and they’re tricking other people into thinking they’re dating when that is in no way the case.

He knows Dan. He’s known Dan for practically his whole life as far as he remembers and he _knows_ that _this_ just can’t and won’t ever happen, so why even let his hopes up at all?

* * *

_4._

Dan’s working on a _“very important paper”_ and so the room is absolutely quiet, if not for the usual sirens and people screaming at each other aside. It’s not unnatural for them at all, specially since uni started, but for some reason the silence here makes Kyle incredibly uncomfortable.

He taps his pen against his notebook, shakes his leg and stares at the back of Dan’s head, but not once does he turn or even note any of those actions, which isn’t exactly very usual. Kyle considers the fact that Dan’s actually serious about this paper being _incredibly fucking important_ , but even still, it doesn’t make too much sense that he’s ignoring him like this.

The dorky watch Dan has beeps at midnight, and the noise seems to echo around the room. He turns the lamp on his desk off, and Kyle turns towards the bed out of pure habit and spends a moment thinking if he _should_ or not, but Dan interrupts him with a cough.

“I can help you set up the couch.” he offers, without even _hesitating_ , with the blankest possible look on his face, and Kyle feels the grip on his heart growing tighter but can’t really say why.

* * *

 Kyle attends this houseparty because it’s a Saturday and he has nothing really better to do. It has _nothing_ to do with the fact that it’s been quite a few days and there’s a calculated chance Dan will be there. He’s there to have fun, like Uni students are supposed to do on Saturdays when they have nothing better to do.

He has a few drinks and finds himself fidgeting with his rings as he talks to a redhaired girl whose name can either be Amy or Emily– he isn’t very sure, there was a lot of noise when they introduced themselves– and gets distracted enough to forget, just for a few moments, about what had been plaguing him for the past few days.

Everything comes back all at once as soon as he spots a familiar head bobbing through the crowd behind Amy or Emily’s shoulder, though. He excuses himself to follow it into the kitchen before he can even think about his actions.

Dan’s rummaging through the bottles laid out on the table, and Kyle takes a deep breath, struggling to recall anything he had wanted to say, but being sure that he could wing it somehow.

 He turns around before Kyle can even open his mouth.

“Oh,” His face is flushed and his lips are trembling, the ghost of a smile fading as soon as he lies his eyes on Kyle. “Hey.”

“Who– Who have you been kissing?” Is for some damn reason the first thing that rolls off Kyle’s tongue, because all of a sudden it’s excessively hard to focus on why he had come there in the first place.

“Nobody,” but his hair’s messy in a _different_ way and his eyes are far too bright. Kyle holds back the urge to throw up, but he doesn’t know why, seeing as Dan pushes past him to leave as quick as that word leaves his mouth.

* * *

 Dan’s lying on the floor, messing with the wires underneath the table, cursing under his breath, and only notices that Kyle’s there when he clears his throat. He’s surprised he doesn’t bump his head as he scrambles to get his head back up to look at him.

“Oh, you’re… here.” There’s actual surprise in Dan’s voice, and Kyle raises an eyebrow at it.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Kyle asks, as Dan gets back up to his feet.

“I dunno, just thought you wouldn’t pop up.”

There’s a moment, when Kyle has his head ducked under the desk to try and plug in their equipment and Dan’s shaking his leg, his shoes not making anywhere as much noise as Kyle recalled, where this doesn’t feel so oddly out of place, where it feels somehow like routine again.

It’s over as quick as it begins, though. Even though Kyle can’t speak for them both, he’s momentarily sure Dan also felt it. As he crawls out from under the table, their eyes meet; but as Dan opens his mouth, the door cracks open, and his friend Sophie’s soon filling the previously deadly quiet room with chatter about something involving the music they were planning on playing.

Dan’s quickly caught up in the conversation, which allows Kyle to very quietly make an escape, neither of them even taking note of the fact that he left or that he was even there in the first place. 

* * *

  _5_ _._

For some reason, the library seems even darker and shittier without Dan there to lead him in. The young lady with the blank name card greets him with a halfhearted wave and an _“oh, you’re finally here”_ , which definitely isn’t an _“oh, no Dan today?”_ that leads Kyle to believe Dan’s actually there somewhere.

Having never really gone past the section that contained the illustrated books, it was a bit overwhelming. After checking through a few rows of shelves, Kyle felt like he understood why Dan always took hours to decide which books to take with him.

Kyle finds him in the horror section, staring blankly at the pages of a thick book. His hair is messy and _everywhere_ , and Kyle wants to run his hands through it to tidy it up, but instead he just slowly approaches and Dan flinches when he taps him on the shoulder.

“How did you know I was here?”

“You weren’t at your flat, I just figured,” Dan pushes the book back on its shelf, without sparing a look at Kyle. “I just… look, I’m _sorry_.”

“For what?”

Kyle follows him as he sidesteps to another section and begins pulling out more books. “For– for–” Dan glances at him out of the corner of his eye. “For pushing you away, for ignoring you, for being an asshole– for everything, basically; look, I’ve been a prick. I’m sorry.”

Dan waits a few seconds, staring intently at the thickest book on the shelf, before turning to look at Kyle. “That’s it?”

“... what?”

“That’s the speech you’ve got? _Uh, I’ve been a proper asshole, sorry about that,_ end?” He’s serious, at least Kyle _thinks_ he’s serious, but there’s a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “How long did you have to plan that?”

“I– look, I’m not good at this.”

“Obviously. That was basically just the introduction, you can’t really act like that’s the _full thing_ and expect me to immediately forgive you, what about the rest? The thick of it?”

“What are you _talking_ about?” Kyle can’t help but chuckle, now.

“Look, the most basic apology I can accept here needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. Like, an introduction– _I’m sorry I was an asshole_ – a reason why– _You did something to piss me off, or, I got tired of you after all these years and finally decided to drop you and go see other people–”_

“That’s not– I don’t– It’s none of that!” Kyle cuts him off, frowning. “I didn’t– I could never get tired of you–”

Dan tilts his head a bit to the side as he eyes him. “What was it then?”

An honest answer comes up but gets stuck in his throat, so he tries the next best thing. “I-I’m… I’m an idiot who makes bad choices.”

There’s a moment of silence before Dan chuckles. “Fair enough.”

* * *

  _6_ _._

It’s a Saturday and they’ve both had a bottle or two of beer each, and are occupying themselves with watching films on Dan’s laptop. Kyle’s doing commentary over the scenes, muttering dumb jokes that make this slightly tipsy Dan laugh in that just _so-overly-Dan_ way of his– quietly wheezing and rocking himself back and forth, hitting his head against the bedframe or waving his ridiculous hair over the screen.

Dan curls up to Kyle while still chuckling, and rather automatically, Kyle’s hand finds its way to his hair. “You’re like, my absolute favourite person.” Dan says, against his chest.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a lie, but I’ll take it.” Kyle retorts, which only makes Dan break off into giggles once more.

“I’m serious,” he says, even though he’s chuckling. A moment passes before he continues. “It’s just… I love you, you know?”

That’s said so quietly Kyle almost misses it. Even though his heart skips a beat, his voice doesn’t weaver: “Whoa there! Bit too soon, isn’t that?” He jokes, albeit a little nervously. “Need to take me out a least once before spitting something like that out!”

Dan laughs, but stops sooner than Kyle expected.

“Can’t this already be considered a date, though?”

* * *

 They’re both completely sober the first time they kiss. It’s under the light of the dim lamp that sits on Dan’s desk, and it’s more awkward and any of them would’ve liked, but it’s _good_. It’s _relieving_.

Dan’s lips are softer than Kyle could’ve ever imagined they’d be, and there’s something very characteristic about the way he curls his cold fingers on the nape of his neck.

There was also something very, _so very characteristic_ about him having to stop before leaning in to awkwardly and quietly ask if he actually had Kyle’s permission to kiss him.

Kyle laughed, because, somehow, this was exactly how he wished this’d go.

* * *

 “You remember that one time when we had a sleepover– I think it was at your place– and we tried staying up all night?”

Dan stops going through his books for a moment to look at Kyle, who’s already leaning back on his chair, eyes on him. “Which time?” He quirks an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure we tried staying up all night every time we had sleepovers.”

“Yeah,” Kyle mumbles, distractedly. “Yeah, we did.”

“What about those times?”

“I don’t know, this sort of reminds me of them, I guess,” he glances back at his laptop, open to the assignment he was supposed to be working on. “Because… I dunno, it’s the both of us, and we’re probably pulling an allnighter.” He sighs. “We really haven’t changed, have we?”

“Is that necessarily a bad thing?” Dan’s suddenly at his shoulder, which startles Kyle a _little_ , but he carries on. “I think it’d be nice if we’re still pulling allnighters together ten years from now.”

Kyle’s heart skips a beat. Dan’s smile is probably enough to brighten the whole room. He presses a kiss to the side of Kyle’s head.

“That thing isn’t going to write itself.”

Kyle catches himself grinning before the snarky comeback rolls off his tongue.


End file.
